Coconut sugar (also known as coco sugar, coconut palm sugar or coco sap sugar) is a sugar produced from the sap of cut flower buds of the coconut palm. Coconut sugar has been used as a traditional sweetener for thousands of years in the South and South-East Asian regions where the coconut palm is in abundant supply. The world's largest producer of coconut is the Philippines and Indonesia.
In some areas, predominantly in Thailand, the terms “coconut sugar” and “palm sugar” are often used interchangeably. However, coconut sugar is different both in taste, texture and manufacture methods from palm sugar, which is made from the sap in the stems of the Palmyra palm, the date palm, the sugar date palm, the sago palm or the sugar palm.
Coconut sugar comes in crystal or granule form, block or liquid. It is essentially a two-step process. It starts with harvesting or “tapping” the blossoms of a coconut tree. Farmers make a cut on the spadix and the sap starts to flow from the cut. The sap is then collected in bamboo containers. The sap collected is then transferred into giant woks and placed over moderate heat to evaporate the moisture content of the sap. The sap is translucent and is about 80% water. As the water evaporates, it starts to transform into a thick syrup-like substance known as a “toddy”. From this form, it is further reduced to crystal, block or soft paste form, or it remains in this form. Essentially, coconut sugar's form depends on the moisture content of the toddy.
FIG. 1 shows a schematic overview of a sap harvesting and collecting process 1 for producing the toddy. The process is described for collecting coconut sap, but is applicable to collecting also other kinds of sap.
The process is a traditional process that has existed for many decades. It involves two basic steps, the first being a collection step (referenced COLLECTION in FIG. 1) in which the sap from the blossoms (flowers) is harvested, which is also known as “tapping” the tree. Harvesting the sap or “tapping” the tree involves making a cut on the spadix of the coconut. Once the tree is tapped, the coconut sap start to flow from the cut and is collected typically in bamboo containers. This operation is repeated for many days successively to “freshen the cut”. The sap continues to flow for about 30 to 40 days from this single spadix but some species have been reported to produce sap for as long as 60 days. The volume of the sap can vary depending to the age of the tree, location, variety of the tree and its general condition. On the average though, a single coconut tree can produce about 288 liters per year. A coconut tree can be tapped for a whole year but it is typically given a rest period of 3 to 4 months per year with some farmers even giving the tree an entire year rest period.
The second step (referenced EVAPORATE in FIG. 1) is to evaporate the moisture from the collected sap. The freshly collected sap is transferred in giant woks or other containers and placed under moderate heat. The sap that is to be used for sugar making process has to be un-fermented sap with a pH level of 5.9 or higher. It is crucial to use fresh sap because the sap starts to ferment as it ages making it useless for sugar-making. The evaporation therefore takes place in close proximity to the collection location. Especially in less developed countries, where transport can often be a slow process. In such countries both the evaporation and any intermittent storage is thus under primitive circumstances in rural environments and subjected to introduce debris, animals, leaves and other impurities. Such impurities are also introduced during the collection step, which is also performed under primitive circumstances in rural environments.
The sap is about 80% water, 15% sugar, and 5% other minerals so heat is used to evaporate the water. Under the heat, a foam starts to float to the top. This foam called a “scum”, is removed as these scum are nitrogenous materials that can cause further fermentation rendering the sap useless for sugar production. As more water evaporates, the sap starts to change color and form from a translucent liquid to a dark brown syrup-like substance. The toddy will then contain both the sugar syrup as well as the impurities. The toddy is the form delivered to the factories where the toddy is further treated, for example by being dehydrated, resulting in the different forms of coconut sugar we see today. Coconut sugar is sold in syrup, hard blocks, soft paste or crystallized form. The form essentially depends on the moisture content of the toddy. The lesser the moisture content, the harder the coconut sugar.
Prior to the he further treatment the impurities need to be removed which is achieved by a series of steps of dissolving, also called melting, the sugar in batches and then manually or at least mechanically sieving it (referenced MELTING & SIEVING in FIG. 1) wherein the sugar is retained in liquid form and the impurities are filtered out or removed, resulting in a sugar quality appropriate for crystallization or other further treatment. The sieving often has to be repeated in several steps to allow for a resulting sugar of a high quality.
The same basic process can be and is used for collection process for other natural components collected from the sap of various trees, especially in less developed countries. One example being the collection of maple sap for producing maple syrup.
This process thus suffers from that the sugar has to be manually sieved and treated in batches which require multiple steps to be taken and which is performed in batches preventing succeeding steps to be performed continuously.
A further drawback of the traditional process is that it essentially involves a boiling of the toddy through which the impurities may add characteristics to the sugar, thereby tainting the taste of the resulting sugar products.
There is thus a need for an improved manner of separating the impurities from the toddy that allows for a continuous production cycle.